Fleeing Gaza: from hell to hope.

Hi my name is Léna Seale, I'm from and based in Ireland, fundraising for my friend Hadeel and her family to leave Gaza. Her sister is currently in Ireland as she managed to get out on the second day of bombing and we are working together on this campaign. Here is her sister Nadein with me in Ireland and Hadeel on video call with us:

Hadeel and I became friends around 3 years ago via online campaigns highlighting the 2021 assault on Gaza and we stayed friends ever since. We hope that one day, with your help, we can finally meet in person. As we raise the funds, I will collect the money and send them to friends of Hadeel in Egypt who will be able to pay the border fees to the agency responsible for their crossing of the border from Gaza into Egypt. Here is her story in her own words:

The journey of searching for a safe life from the city of love and war to a city of love and peace.

This is me Hadeel, 25 years of pain and suffering in Gaza, I have seen nothing in my homeland but wars and destruction. Since childhood I have been witnessing one war after another, with little break from destruction. I only smelled the smell of death and I only felt fear every time, but I never complained about my homeland, which I loved. However, this bloody genocide of my people made me strive for survival, the greatest form of resistance. Like anyone I should have the right to live, dream, have ambitions. I was always striving for the best and to change a painful reality that no one can bear. Now my utmost wish is only to sleep peacefully without fear, to find clean water to drink, water to bathe and wood to light a fire.

My hopes and ambitions to complete my education have become devastated. I had been striving since I graduated to get a job in Gaza, a place with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. I hardly worked for months but got some translation work here and there, then this criminal war came and destroyed everything I sought for.

I got married a few months ago, I had not settled in my new home yet, a dream house for me and my husband, filled with love and warmth away from all this noise, a house that we planned years ago to fill with happiness. Then this cruel genocide made me homeless, without shelter, looking for warmth and safety. I was forcibly displaced like many from my house to the south in Khan Younis.

There is no safe corner in Gaza, death is approaching us every minute. There is only death here, where life has become in my eyes without colors. Every day is like the previous one, every day I wish death in order to rest from this suffering, before this I was a person who thinks about hope and life.

I can't wait any longer and see my family shredded or martyrs in front of my eyes, I can't describe the suffering we are enduring. I don't want to see what happened to my area. It has been completely wiped out. This time that passes is from my age and from all of us. I want to start from scratch in order to build a new life full of hope, optimism, security and stability without fear of tomorrow.

Now I ask for your help so we can live. The cost per person to leave Gaza is approximately €5200. We are aiming to raise funds for my husband and I, my family: 10 people including my parents, my little brother and my little sister, and my married sister has two children and her husband. Their names:

Hadeel Esam Dabbas

Fadi said shbair

Esam Hamed Dabbas

Farida Hassan Dabbas

Samer Esam Dabbas

Farah Esam Dabbas

Haneen Esam Dabbas

Rami Atef Dabbas

Atef Rami Dabbas

Adam Rami Dabbas

The money that will be collected will cover the cost of evacuation and that's all we want. Your generosity will not only help to ensure our safety, but will give us the opportunity to build our lives in a safe and stable environment and give us hope to reach our dreams and work. It will be a cause of survival, your support can change our lives. How the money will be spent (update): currently the fees are approximately €5200 per person to evacuate. Léna will send the money via Western Union to old neighbours of the family who are now based in Egypt. They will then send the money to Ya Hala, the agency that evacuates people from Gaza!

We are not numbers and I will not wait for my fate to be like the fate of those who died. I will not wait to be a number in the lists of martyrs and I will not make my family taste more pain. You are the one who will determine our fate, after God, being the reason for our survival.

Thank you for your generosity,

Hadeel Dabbas